How To Take a Sharper Cat Photo

If you are like me you absolutely love taking pictures of cat fur and cat coat colours. But, do you have issues when you try to take a sharper cat photo? I know I do. If you struggle or want to improve, this post is for you.

Furtography

I have been trying to improve my fur photograph quality by taking a sharper cat picture for a while now and I am learning that just getting out into the garden, a park or a city street and practising gives you confidence and helps you learn.

Using your camera helps you remember settings for modes like Aperture Priority*, and Shutter Priority**. If you take your settings one at a time and do what I did here – push each one as far as you can. You will learn what each mode and setting can do, as well as what doesn’t work. which is just as important.

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Let‘s Take a Look at My Fur Settings

Just a quick reminder.

As your skills grow, you will want to keep improving for your own satisfaction and personal growth as a photographer, even if you consider yourself an amateur, not a professional.

When you work to take a sharper cat photo and get sharp fur much more often ithis is great for rescue pictures, boosts your skills for sponsored blog posts and even lets you think about submitting to print magazines.

It has taken me time to work up confidence and find settings that are starting to work and I want to share them for you. Especially if you aspire to good sharp fur on your pets.

Taking A Sharper Cat Photo

Remember, you lose nothing by experimenting, and you can delete pictures that don’t work. This is the big advantage of a modern digital-based SLR. Download the pictures – delete your disasters after you have taken a good look and learned what worked and what did not.

For these pictures I pushed everything further than I had before.I experimented with close-ups of Dot Kitten our tabby cat to see what would happen.

Cat close-ups are becoming a favourite subject of mine and exploring new areas with a favourite shooting concept means it doesn’t seem horribly unfriendly. [I posted about the amazing effects you can get with cat photo closeups here.]

Dot was in a relaxed mood and I got down to cat level so she was not edgy about the camera. I began to explore the shutter speed and the F-stop with a few adjustments to the light through the ISO button. These may not be standard photography settings but they allowed me to discover how sharp I can get.

Here is what I ended up with:

• ISO 3200
• F-stop at F22
• Shutter speed 1/400

When you explore, never be afraid to make mistakes it is going to happen. You never know what your pictures may teach you!

I hope you will join Bionic Basil, Barking from the Bayou and ourselves and let me know how you think Dot looks in per pictures.

Photography Definitions

• Aperture Priority* Wikipedia “Aperture priority, often abbreviated A or Av (for aperture value) on a camera mode dial, is a setting on some cameras that allows the user to set a specific aperture value (f-number) while the camera selects a shutter speed to match it that will result in proper exposure”
• Shutter Priority** Wikipedia. “Shutter priority (usually denoted as S on the mode dial), also called time value (abbreviated as Tv), refers to a setting on some cameras that allows the user to choose a specific shutter speed while the camera adjusts the aperture to ensure correct exposure.”
• Definition of F5.6 “Aperture refers to the lens diaphragm. In ‘auto’ mode it is similar to the human eye and narrows when there is a lot of light or widens when there is little light. Aperture is measured in f-stops (for example, f1.4, f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, f22 and so on).” Australian Geographic